On January 2, 2007, we left Montañita for Guayaquil where we´d hoped to somehow find a bus across the Peruvian border. We were looking forward to see Peru - Damon and Joss whom we´d met in Montañita had given us some great recommendations for places to go besides of course Machu Picchu. Lonely Planet-less for more than a month already, we were feeling quite lost and were burning a lot of time trying to do our own research online. It was impossible to find any Lonely Planets in South America, let alone one in English.
Anyway, armed with only enough information to get us to our next destination (Mancorra, a coastal town in Peru), we bought 2 tickets back to Guayaquil on the 5am bus. We bought these tickets at 4:45 am and were the last people they sold tickets to that morning. Luckeee. Then we found out that the bus was full and we would have to go in a mini van for the 3 hour ride. This would have been perfectly fine had it not been for the fact that they sold more tickets than there was room for. It was a creative exercise in trying to find the least painful way to survive the 3 hour ride without developing a blood clot or pulling a muscle.
The Terrestre bus station in Guayaquil is a beastly experience especially if you speak 2 week old Spanish. Over 60 different bus companies from which to buy tickets on a day when just about everyone is trying to get home from wherever they spent New Years´. Traveling by bus is the most economical and most popular mode of travel in South America. There are really comfortable options if you pay a little more; you can get a large comfy seat that reclines all the way flat, there are bathrooms on board as well as food service and waiters. This was the sort of cushy bus that we had planned on taking from Ecuador to Peru. Until we found out that it would take 60 hours to get from Guayaquil to Cusco. And besides the bus was full.
Silly us, thinking that we could do Peru in one and a half weeks.
On a trip like this, it is best not to fight against where the winds want to steer you and so, after struggling with whether or not to change our plans, we decided that we would be better off skipping Peru and adding the one and a half weeks to Argentina instead. We were so disappointed but plan to come back to Peru better equipped, and with a smarter plan. We walked from the bus station to the airport and booked ourselves on the first flight out to Mendoza, Argentina, scheduled to depart in a good 13 hours.
